


Royal Guard

by ThirteenSocks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Mpreg, trans keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28939638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenSocks/pseuds/ThirteenSocks
Summary: Shiro is the prince of Altea's royal guard. Keith, said prince, is pregnant with what will be the last Altean. The lines blur between duty to the prince and to his own heart as Keith's due date approaches.The baby isn’t his. Keith isn’t his. But Shiro has always seemed to want things just beyond his reach. And he wanted Keith- and the baby- to be his.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	Royal Guard

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was made for the Creation Zine. For more information, please see the Twitter page  
> [@pregkeithzine](https://twitter.com/PregKeithZine) for details.

Shiro enters the common room. It’s quiet— the tv isn’t buzzing, the gaming console long rested away for the afternoon. The team had been training, all save one-- who was currently cozied up on his side against the armrest of the couch. The lights in their afternoon-setting play with the earrings on the man's ear, casting small rainbows across the skin of his pregnant belly. Keith, the Altean Prince who had captivated Shiro from their first meeting, is napping peacefully on the sofa.

Tentatively, Shiro walks toward the man.

The baby isn’t his. Keith isn’t his. But Shiro has always seemed to want things just beyond his reach. And he wanted Keith- and he wanted the baby- to be his.

The other father was an Altean long lost to the universe, alongside most of the planet to war 10,000 years ago. Keith and his baby are Altea’s last hope, one pregnancy of the intended many that had meant to carry on the Altean race. The Altean king had foreseen the destruction of the war and, as they found out from a recorded confession, had marked Keith, his future children, Allura, and Coran to be put into cryosleep until the time was safe.

Except Altea’s destruction came too quickly.

Keith was still pregnant with his first child when he was put to sleep.

Shiro kneels beneath Keith’s feet and gently works his arms under him, so he can carry the man to his quarters. His muscles are kept tight so that the movement is fluid and controlled. He lifts Keith, careful not to jostle him as he climbs back to his feet. Napping in the common room, Allura would say, is not proper Altean behavior. Certainly not a royal one. So Shiro took it up himself to help Keith evade getting caught whenever he could.

He takes the sleeping man away, stepping slowly, to his room, and sets him gingerly on the bed. He positions Keith slightly upright, knowing from many conversations that that was most comfortable for his afternoon snoozing. Pillows are piled around Keith and get slipped behind his back and neck.

Shiro has to press his tongue firmly along his palette to stay his lips and fingers, which wish to draw softly against Keith’s face.His palms itch to cradle Keith’s cheek. He’d give so much to dance kisses along the bridge of that nose. Everything in him aches for Keith, the man whose passion scorches with an intensity that makes the brightest star seem meek in its glow. The man who loves his people enough to be willing to carry their baby. Keith is kind, though he can struggle to express it.

Shiro sits down in a chair beside the desk, both of which are too small for him, but he dare not settle beside Keith.

As time passes with quiet ease, Shiro allows himself to bask in the warmth of this domesticity. Though he’s Keith’s guard, it’s too easy to imagine himself as the other father. Too easy to imagine that’s his baby. It feels like his family.

He goes to get Keith some water and a snack.

The tinkling from the mobile above the crib is chiming softly in the low-lit room. Accompanied with a near imperceivable churning of its motor, Shiro, himself, feels lulled and soothed as if he were the babe that was still growing in Keith’s tummy. The gentle glow of the Altean blue that lines the nursery is casting itself upon the bare skin of Keith’s torso and face. It frames him like a halo. Shiro inhales deep the sweet perfume of Keith’s natural scent— it’s floral and woodsy.

Those eyes of deep, burning sapphire bloom slowly from beneath a fan of dark lashes. Keith jolts and his eyebrows furrow and his hands pat furiously on the bed around himself.

“You’re alright. It’s ok, Keith. You fell asleep on the couch so I brought you to your chambers. Here- I have some water, and there’s one of your favorite snacks if you’re hungry.”

Keith accepts the glass Shiro extends to him and gulps down the water, thanking him as he reaches for the snack next to him.

“You’re due soon, right?” Shiro asks with barely a voice. Even if he didn’t know from being in the room, supporting Keith at his exams, it’s obvious with how full the curve of his belly is that the baby’s arrival won’t be much longer. But he’s seen the looming date slowly eating away at Keith and he’s not sure how to get the man to open up.

Keith yawns and stretches his arms, eyes blinking to clear sleep. “Yeah?” His voice is gravely.

“How are you feeling?”

“‘M good,” He turns his cheek into the pillow but his gaze doesn’t quite meet Shiro’s.

“That’s good. It’s… ok though, if you aren’t. Aren’t ok, that is. If you’re scared or overwhelmed- well, I think anyone would be.”

Keith hums turns his head back up towards the ceiling, hands coming to lace atop his belly. “I’m not just anyone. I can’t be just anyone.”

“No- no, you’re not, Prince Keith. But to your baby, you’re just momma.”

He steps into Keith’s space and lowers down to his knees. “Baby doesn’t need a prince, doesn’t need a paladin, what they need is someone to nurse them and clean them up and hold them and love them.”

“I can be a prince, I can be a paladin- I don’t know if I can be a parent. The royal family took me in but I've always been a problem child and I don’t think they were able to get through to me enough. If I mess up for myself, fine-- but if I mess up for my baby? They… they’re the last full-blooded Altean that will be born. And, quiznack, Shiro, they’re a baby! They have their own life and I could just ruin it for them. Shiro, I can’t-”

“Yes you can, Keith-”

“-No, Shiro, I.. This is stupid, I shouldn’t have been the one-- I’m gonna wreck it like I’ve wrecked everything-”

“-Keith-”

“-I-”

“Let me help you!” He shouts and his hand immediately flies up to his mouth.

Keith stares dumbly, unmoving.

“Keith… listen, I’ve been thinking- it’s not my place but- I want.. I want you to know you aren’t alone. I won’t let you raise this baby by yourself. So, whatever’s on your mind, whatever is making you feel this way, I’m here.”

He sighs and tentatively reaches a hand out to cradle Keith’s cheek. There are confessions staying his tongue and squeezing his throat- some other time, he thinks. When Keith isn’t vulnerable, when Keith has choice in whether he leans on Shiro, when, when, when-

Keith’s eyes murk with tears and Shiro pulls him into his arms as best he can from the angle.

“Thank you,” Keith speaks soft into the tear-soaked skin of Shiro’s neck.

He gently pulls away from Shiro, “...Have I ever told you about my dad?” Keith pats the mattress and Shiro sits down at the end of the bed. He shakes his head.

“My dad, He-... he used to be a guard for the royal family. He was kind of my hero, you know? Well it was when the war was just starting, there was a druid who tried to burn the palace down. Except my dad had intervened and jumped into the ball of fire,to use himself as a shield,” Keith kneads the comforter in his fists, “Alfor did all he could to raise me, after that. I was adopted into the family. But I was just a problem kid.” He lets go and scrubs at his face. “I didn’t spend enough time being a good kid to know what it means to be a good parent. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Keith. Listen to me. When we’re out there on the battlefield- you’re the one I can rely on to be my right hand. We’re all a part of this team, we all have different parts to play, and you… you’re,” he pauses and nearly chokes on the words he wants to say, “All I need you to be. And you’re gonna be the same way with your baby. They’re going to want for nothing.”

“Well maybe when we’re a team- but this isn’t Voltron.”

His heart sinks. “You really think you’re in this alone?” he scoots closer to Keith and extends a hand. He’s not sure where he wants to go with it- his baby bump? His face?

Keith decides for him, grabbing it and holding it.

Those sapphires are wide, like Keith doesn’t know what he’s doing or why.

“We’re a team,” Shiro offers a smile and a squeeze of their hands, “Inside and outside of the Lions.”

“But Shiro, this is… this is a baby.”

“I know.”

Shiro holds eye contact as he gently pries his hand away from Keith’s. He rests the palm flat along the swell of Keith’s belly.

“We’re a team, Keith. I’m not ever giving up on you, so don’t you dare give up on yourself.”

Keith’s shine with a layer of tears that he tries to blink away.

”I think I’m going to nap some more. Can you lay with me?”

Shiro settles against the pillows and Keith moves so that his back rests on Shiro’s chest. Shiro brings his arms around Keith, placing them where they naturally land- on the baby bump- and he breathes in the sweet scent of Keith’s hair as the man drifts back asleep.

He holds the man and dreams of the future where this is his family.


End file.
